Encroaching Black
by Writer of souls
Summary: Batman and the Joker stop for a moment and talk, both tired of everything. Not exactly Angst, just an experiment in hurt/comfort genre. Could be seen as Pre Slash.
1. Encroaching Black

It was like they were falling, deeper and deeper every day.

Their fights were beginning to mean less, to have less impact on the other.

They were pulling on the last reserves of their strengths, fighting like dying men who were too stubborn to give up. They weren't fighting, they were sitting alone in some decrepit part of the city, there masks tightly woven, but there were cracks.

The makeup peeled away and faded, rubbing off.

The black mask would slip off of bits that needed to be covered.

They were failing all of a sudden, with no one to grab onto them, nothing to balance them against the edge of the nothingness that they were becoming. The gaping blackness of their identities stripping away and leaving nothing but two men who desperately needed to change their lives.

It was yet another fight, one in which their bodies just begged them to give up quickly before they were sucked into the black.

The clown prince of Gotham, the Dark knight of the same city.

Their stories were carved along the other body, in scars and in muscle pain, and another pain, deeper than the first, one which could never be solved by a hospital or a first aid kit.

He'd told so many stories about himself that he couldn't even remember, the scars on his mouth marking him as a different person than who he had been, had started as.

He'd worn the cape and mask so long that he was beginning to lose sight of himself within the image of the city protector, the black creeping and encroaching on him every day.

Fists slamming against unprotected body, slams against a wall becoming softer, hands not seeking to cause so much pain, the fight just eventually stopping.

They were at a standstill.

Standing less than forty feet from each other, yet no closer than thirty feet, the two watched the other warily.

The blackness encroached, held at bay for a moment, as a decision was seemingly made, a thought mutually agreed upon.

Taking the first step, the man in purple and green wandered forwards, feet patting the ground softly.

The Knight held his ground, eyes a little softer now.

"Why are we still doing this Batsy?" came the demented mans whisper. "What is accomplished?"

He took another step, closing the distance as the black crept in a little further.

The Knight raised his eyes from the clowns feet.

"We're accomplishing nothing, there's nothing useful to be found here." was the harshly whispered reply. "But this city needs people to hate and it needs people to protect it from the ones it hates...We, unfortunately, fill those roles."

"They hate you too, Bats. Nearly as much as they hate me."

The Knight closed his eyes, breathing a sigh that made him sounds centuries old.

"I know they do."

The clown took another step, another inch closer as the black held back, watching this new development.

"They why fight for them?"

Opening his eyes, the Knight looked at the Clown Prince. "Because they need a hero."

Instantly a bitter reply was slung back at him. "Why do you need to be their hero? Not that I don't enjoy our dances, but why do you need to be their hero?" A nervous twitch, a tongue licking at the edges of his mouth, grease paint smearing just a little more.

The Knight took his first step forward towards the Clown.

He didn't have a reply.

The Clown stepped forwards again, now no longer far away from the Knight, instead just a short distance of five feet from him, the black that was threatening to destroy them both right behind him, another foot and it would start swallowing him.

"Bats..." he whispered, hands twisting at his sides.

With another step, it was the Knight who began the closing of the final distance.

There was no fighting left in this short distance, all that was left were masks and costumes, people they didn't really need to be.

With a final step on both sides, they were toe to toe.

"Maybe they aren't the only ones who need a hero...Maybe I need to be that hero just as much as they need me to be."

The Clown nodded, looking into the stormy blue eyes behind the mask.

The Knight looked into the bright green eyes behind the paint.

They both nodded, a mutual understanding.

The black was retreating, pulling back and allowing them to breathe easily once more.

"I'll be seeing you Bats." The Clown whispers as the Knight retreats into the darkness of the sleeping city, the very darkness seeming to have changed color.


	2. Blinding white

The Joker had finally been caught.

This time, when he was placed in Arkham, his hands were bound tightly. He was given a guard constantly.

He never had a moment alone.

They stripped him down to bare skin the moment he set foot inside the building. No hiding places for knives, or guns, or anything else he would have liked to play with.

He was, Bruce thought, sad looking.

They'd shaved his formerly green hair off, revealing scabs, scars and when it started growing back, blonde stubble.

The asylum had scrubbed off the make-up as well.

There were still stains, grease paint tended to do that, but he was revealed to be fair complexioned and freckled. His green eyes shone like poison when his guard came too near to him.

He walked forward towards the clown prince, mental shields up halfway, still a little reeling from the night the blackness had pulled away.

"Bruce Wayne...What do I owe this honor to? The spoiled wealthy little prince comes to visit the poor, trapped, pathetic-"

"You're anything but pathetic. You know that, Joker." he answered, pulling up the chair in front of him, across the table. The positions they were in mirroring that night they had talked.

The Joker pulled back, eyes narrowing as he sat up a little straighter, studying the position they were sitting in. Suddenly he grinned, the scars around his mouth softened a little by the loss of his normal make-up. Bruce understood why the man before him had his hackles raised. The mask had been removed, the safety pulled away. The face he had hidden behind for so long had been pulled away from him.

Green eyes locked with Blue, understanding in the former, worry in the latter.

"Don't worry, rich boy, I won't tell."

He sighed in relief.

"You like playing with your toys...I like playing with mine, but they take mine away and would do the same to you. They may have taken my freedom, but they won't take yours, batsy."

Bruce sighed, leaning forward on the table, pulling himself in closer so they could talk quieter. "I..." he stopped, took a breath, then started again. "I can try to get you out of here."

He couldn't believe he was saying this, offering this freedom for this man.

They were too alike to be separated for long.

That's all it boiled down to.

The Joker leaned in as well, reducing the space between them to a scant inch, maybe two. With a soft sound, he opened his lips in the playboys face, still looking into his eyes. "I won't tell them who my favorite is...I won't tell them who their hero and greatest villain is. I doubt they would believe me, no matter what."

With a grin, he placed a kiss on the other mans nose, pulled back and quietly counted down from three.

Right on time, his guards harshly pulled him from the chair, all the way back to his cell.

Bruce sat there quietly, fingers holding the tip of his nose, where a kiss had been planted.

The next couple of weeks passed slowly. Bruce Wayne watching as the Joker lost his color, more and more of himself leaking away as he stayed within the walls of the asylum.

He seemed to be fading to nothing.

He was getting as pale as the snow that was threatening to fall upon the city.

It was hard to watch, which led Bruce Wayne, heir to Wayne Enterprises, with a decision that probably could land the man himself in Arkham.

"You want us to...What?"

He sat talking with the head psychiatrist of Arkham Asylum, bargaining for the release into his custody of the patient known only as the Joker.

"I want to see if, when given a proper personal sponsor, a patient of Arkham could rehabilitate into society."

The other man leaned forwards, fingers steepled together. "You bring forth an interesting proposition. I suppose, theoretically, a patient could realign perhaps more easily in a personal home than in an asylum such as this...Very well. I must, however, insist that you be careful. This patient has calmed down more than one would expect, but I still advise you to be cautious. He's still a danger. A background check on you will not be necessary, due to who you are...but I would suggest that you submit your housing to a complete check-over for anything he might be able to exploit."

Bruce nodded, filling out the proper papers.

An hour later, he was guiding a jacket wrapped Joker into his limo, placing him in the backseat.

Just as the door closed, snowflakes started falling softly around them, slowly covering Gotham City in a blanket of white.

They got to Bruce's manor, Joker looking very confusedly at Bruce still.

"You're pulling me into your own house, Bat-...Bruce. Where does this seem wise?"

He sighed, looking at the man with short blonde hair.

"In truth, I'm not quite sure myself."

He pulled the blonde indoors, sitting him on a couch in front of the window as he went to get hot water ready for something to drink.

When he walked back in, the Joker had curled his legs up into his chest. He was staring out the window as the snow fell down. His green eyes were softened by the reflection of the world outside.

"Joker. I know you're going to have to follow rules while you're here. You know that. But you are going to be less trapped than you were in that place. Arkham is not the most kind of places...it-"

"Jack."

Bruce stopped dead, confused. "What?"

"My name. It's Jack Napier."


	3. Full Color

Bruce held his breath, watching as the other man went back to staring out the window.

The man who had killed Rachel was gone, drugged out of his system by a heavy dose of tranquilizers and anti-pyschotics.

This was somebody entirely new, and he wasn't sure how to handle him. He still felt angry, broken somewhere in his mind, but for some reason he couldn't blame the man in front of him anymore. Jack had been stripped of almost everything that was reminiscent of the Joker.

Pulled apart in ways that Bruce couldn't even imagine.

Arkham had helped him in some ways, but he had also been locked up with people like Doctor Crane. The man's morals were a bit more skewed of the path than the Joker's were, far off what they probably should have been.

Jack had been locked in with him for months, with no reprieve in sight.

He still hated the man for taking Rachel from him, still held onto onto the ghost of a memory of her, scent fading.

But on the other side of it, he was the Knight of Gotham. Shouldn't that mean he needed to save everyone?

Or at least try?

Bruce stood there for a few more minutes, feeling like a stranger and an intruder in his own home as he watched Jack run his fingers across the glass. He was following the patterns of the snowflakes as they fell across the glass.

It looked serene and quiet, and it occured to him that he had never seen the man in front of him at peace like this. They had always fought, seeking to cause pain and bleeding, trying to bruise.

Except that hadn't been the truth of it as of late.

They had changed their interactions, the night that the dark had threatened to swallow them whole and tear them apart.

They had found each other in the dark, and now it seemed...

Call him crazy, but now it seemed like Jack needed him. Needed to be led out of a world of darkness and nightmares. That had been the reason that Bruce had proposed the rehabilitation in the first place.

Something in him had protested at the idea of the Joker being locked away in the empty world of Arkham Asylum, forgotten and lost. For someone like him, being forgotten was a curse.

Bruce didn't really know Jack yet, but he could already tell that it might be the same for him. Napier seemed a little tightly wound, like a string pulled too tight. More likely to snap than even the Joker had been.

He could deal with tightly wound.

He could even deal with random flashes of mood that the doctors had seen fit to warn him about. Bruce wasn't sure, however, if he could deal with it all from Rachel's killer. The man in the other room had put Harvey Dent in the hospital, had picked apart lives for little other reason than wanting to see the chaos that resulted.

In his own words, recorded in his file at Arkham, he truly wanted to see the world burn.

He was certifiably mad, and he had come with a mile long list of medications and safety procedures.

The soft pad of bare feet against tile alerted him to Jack moving around and he cast a wary glance to the other room. The tea kettle begged for his attention, drawing him away from watching Jack. Carelessly pouring boiling hot water into two mugs, followed by almost perfume like sachets of some mixture that Alfred had bought, he sighed.

The older man had claimed that it was supposed to alleviate stress and had promptly stocked the cupboards with it. The smell made him smile, almost able to calm him down by scent alone.

With mugs in hand, he re-entered the living room, watching Jack make a small circuit of the space. He had one hand on the wall, eyes half closed as he moved. It was only the clink of porcelain on glass that made him still.

"What's going to happen?"

Bruce sat down, leaving Jack's chosen seat empty. At first, Jack hovered, then he sat on the arm of the couch. Seconds later, he was curled back in the corner again, one of the steaming mugs in his hands.

It was a sweet image, and it made something in his chest tighten. The Joker gave the impression of being larger than life, like he was a comic book villain in the real world.

Jack Napier gave the impression of being a young man caught in a nightmare that he couldn't quite wake up from.

They were almost two seperate beings, and more than anything, that was what scared Bruce. A man who couldn't be held accountable for the damage he had caused always scared him.

Possibly because he could relate a little too well.

"I don't know."

Jack met his eyes, focusing only for a second before his gaze was trained back on the snow fall outside.

"Everything seems a little different now." he whispered, hand clenching around the handle of the mug. The other hand was twisted into the sleeve of his shirt, a soft grey against pale skin.

Bruce shook his head, pulling his mug into the cradle of his hands. With the man sitting quietly next to him, the snow outside, and the sweet smelling tea in their hands, this felt almost domestic.

"It will be."

Jack smiled, the scars on his cheeks pulling at the skin.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

BAuthors note:

I am so sorry this took this long.

I thought I could have done this a year ago. I had planned on it. But then I lost interest in the story for a bit. I swear, I didn't mean to leave it alone this long, but nothing I wrote felt like an appropriate ending. It all seemed too hokey and awful and far too OOC.

-WoS/B


End file.
